


Storm Watch

by binz, shiplizard



Category: Dresden Files - All Media Types, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Community: trope_bingo, Drag Queens, Female Characters, Gen, Weather Symbolism, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/shiplizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For trope_bingo. Square: AU: Cop/ Detective, which we perverted into generic ‘government agent’. </p><p>A scene from a universe where Susan Rodriguez is still a freelance journalist, very much not a vampire, and doing the odd supernatural consult between writing gigs. And, occasionally, doing contract jobs for Agent Mallory-- the only wizard on the NSA roster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm Watch

**Author's Note:**

> Features our usual tells. Why drag? Because drag is awesome.

“No no, honey,” the drag queen said, patting at one of her victory rolls. “That’s what I’m saying-- one minute the pizza was there, the next, gone!” She snapped her fingers, a sharp little crack in the dry, hot air. “Just like the blueberry pie and the loaf of bread last week. Turn away for half a second, and then next thing you know.” She sighed. “What’s a girl supposed to do? Half my stock is disappearing off the window ledge.” 

I looked longingly at the door to the main seating area; there was AC in there, but in here the heat of a busy kitchen and the open window meant that trying to cool it with anything but a few big industrial fans was just burning money. At least it was cooler than it was outside. Slightly. Eggs weren’t visibly cooking on the counters. “I hate to go for the obvious suggestion, first, but...” 

“But it’s traditional!” She ticked her nails on the Formica counter, pouting. “It’s not like I actually think exposing anything to the air around here is going to cool it off. I mean, look at me, I’m sweating my face off. But if there isn't a pie in the window, it isn’t The Ripe Cherry Diner.” 

The vintage alarm clock sitting on the counter went off, a clatter of tinny bells that instantly made me want to beat it with a hammer, and the drag queen--Vera, or Vera Big Wang, if you’re looking at her nametag-- tapped it off professionally as she sashayed past on her way to cracking open the oven door. “Mmm, peach,” she said, wrapping her hands in a towel and pulling out the steaming pie. “The boys will all tell you-- my peach is the best in the state.” She winked at me when she said it, but from the way my mouth was already watering at the smell, I believed her despite herself.

She slid the pie onto the window sill-- a thick, solid number probably installed just for that purpose-- and cracked the old fashioned shutters, “There!” and turned back to me. “Like a little peach yourself, eh, girl reporter? I’ll save you a slice.” Another wink, but I couldn’t help but like her. “Let me get you some coffee?”

“That would be great, thanks. But don’t starve your men on account of me,” I said dryly, and tapped my pen against my notebook while she bustled out a french press and kettle. “When did the food start disappearing? Last week?”

Before she could answer, the perfect 50s-replica kitchen was filled with a perfect 90s-replica beeping, and I grimaced, reaching into my bag. “I’m so sorry-- just give me a second to check this.”

“Is that a pager?” Vera asked, and when I pulled it out, “Oh my lanta, it is. Who uses a pager these days?”

I glanced at the number-- I didn’t know it, but no surprises there. It was probably a pay phone outside a gas station on the interstate somewhere. One of the few places you could still find them, these days. There was only one person who ever contacted me like this. 

“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “This is a contact of mine. I need to go return her call. I’ll be right back.”

Vera waved a hand, clucking her tongue. “I’ll be here, love. The water’s not even hot-- Oh sugar! It’s gone!” 

I followed her angry point to the empty pie plate on the windowsill, and the pager went off again. “Be right back,” I promised, and ducked out into the diner, making a break for the AC while I could, and pulled out my cell phone.

I dialed the number on the pager-- it rang twice, and then connected with a burst of static. 

“Mallory,” said the crisp voice along the line. 

“Rodriguez,” I answered, a little playfully. “You rang?” 

“Where are you?” she said instead, not taking me up on it. Must have been serious. Or she didn’t think the connection would last long enough for pleasantries.

“I’m at The Ripe Cherry Diner, off the Coronado freeway. Talking to a potential client. She needs a detective, not a journalist, but...” I trailed off, and there was a pause. I gave it a few seconds, not sure if she’d disconnected or was just thinking. 

“I know the place,” she said finally, under the crackle and millisecond interruptions down the line. “Near the immigrant nisse’s camp.” 

And it looked like I’d cracked Vera’s case for her-- or, really, Mallory had. Wizards. Always upstaging me. “That’s the one,” I said with a sigh. 

“I’ll be there in half an hour. Give Ms. Wang my regards.” 

“I’ll do that.” 

Either she hung up or the connection finally gave out; either way, she was on her way, and I had a half an hour to convince Vera that it was going to be in her best business interests to set out a slice of pie and a cup of milk for the fairies (fairy, singular) every morning. I’d done my legwork; the nisse could be helpful if they liked you, and they’d be predisposed to like someone with as much glamour-lowercase-g as a Queen. Mythology said-- and my investigations had confirmed-- that most of the household type fae liked pranks, jokes, transformation. I could see why this one had been attracted to The Ripe Cherry (Motto: Drag In, Eat Out). 

I wanted to linger in the air conditioning until my sweat froze on me, but I knew I’d better get to work. Vera had hired me for information, so I steered back towards the kitchen reluctantly, wincing as the first gust of air hit me. Not milk for the faeries, I decided instantly. Make that lemonade and a pie. Might not be traditional, but any fae that lived in this climate had to know what this weather did to their beverage of choice. Danish, weren’t they originally? Maybe this one had wanted a change of climate. A very major change of climate.

It took me most of that half hour to convince Vera that I wasn’t putting her on. Yes, a piece of pie right under the window and a glass of, sure, tequila might actually be a good idea. Yes, say to the empty air that ‘this is for my friend from Denmark, please leave the rest.’ Yes, I was absolutely serious. 

I pointed out that if she tried it for a week and it didn’t work, she could bounce my check-- that seemed good enough for her. 

Then I waited in the dining room until the last minute, until the AC sunk down to the bone, and stepped back out into the sun again to meet my contact.

Agent Elaine Mallory. She had rolled into my life like a storm, a big crackling summer thunderstorm that washed the air clean and lit up the sky and was gone again, leaving everything looking just that little bit different.

She was with the government, if her job title didn’t tip you off. The NSA specifically, a little sub-sub-division that you wouldn’t find on Google, even if you knew how to look. I did. And I had. 

On the one hand, that her job existed-- that anyone had even known to recruit her to it when she’d been a scared teenager on the run from the ruins of her life-- it meant the government knew a lot more than it was telling its citizens. On the other hand, it meant that at least they were doing something about it. Whether or not that was any kind of comfort to you. I tried to look on the bright side. 

I don't do government work as a rule, and it wasn’t as if they’d have had much work for a freelance journalist anyway-- but Elaine was a specialist, and so was I, in a way. I was her eyes in the world, sometimes, because I could talk to people who might not talk to her and definitely wouldn’t talk to a standard-issue agent. And I wasn’t fooling myself; she was keeping an eye on what I published, using our working relationship to make sure I didn’t shine light into too many corners that the government wanted to stay dark. But it was worth it. She’d opened up a hidden world for me, one I’d been trying to rip the lid off for ages. I might not have been able to bring it to the public yet, but at least I finally knew for myself, finally had my confirmation. 

We’d met through a friend of a friend. A friend of a boyfriend, a friend of an _ex_ boyfriend, actually. The ‘ex’ had been very recent at the time, painful enough that said friend had bridged our traditional cop vs. reporter animosity to offer me a drink.

I’d needed a drink. I was reeling, because I’d had a bad week and I hated to leave the chauvinistic bastard. Sweet guy, amazingly sweet, a good boyfriend, a good lover, had nearly gotten me killed because he’d withheld information from me on a regular basis. Things might have gone... bad. Very bad, if the NSA’s shadow department hadn’t been around to put a damper on Bianca St. Claire’s big Chicago party. Elaine had been in on that raid, not that I’d known it at the time... 

Sorry, this can’t be making sense. I’ll try to make it short. My ex? A wizard. Bianca St. Claire? A vampire. The party? An upscale version of that rave from the Blade movie. 

Me? Almost an entree, because I hadn’t known, and the doting boyfriend wouldn’t tell me, about the vampire thing, or the scene-from-Blade thing.

So. 

My relationship with the wizard? Toast. 

And in the weepy aftermath the wizard’s ladycop pal had taken me out for a drink, and given me this sympathetic look as I poured my heart out about why men wouldn't goddamn tell you things and generally expected you not to _do your job_ , and passed me a plain stockboard card that just had a phone number and the words AGENT E. MALLORY, NSA embossed in block font. 

“She might be able to help,” Murphy’d said. “And you might be able to help her.” 

 

That was two, three years ago. And it led to me here, leaning against the stucco wall outside The Ripe Cherry, just me and the lizards watching as a beat-up car with government plates rolled up in a cloud of dust. 

It was a hundred in the shade, of which there was very little. I was wearing the lightest top I could find and stay decent, and my hair was still heavy with sweat, but when Elaine stepped out of the car she looked crisp and fresh and not at all like she was dying in her bland linen suit. 

“Susan,” she greeted me, tapping her sunglasses in a way I knew meant hello. A friendlier gesture than it looked, to the uninitiated. 

“Hey.” 

She stepped away from the car as a breeze kicked up, stirring the dust and sand and washing over me in a cool wave. I shivered in relief. She’d pulled that stunt on me once when our working relationship had been new-- an intimidation tactic then, but now a gesture of consideration. It was sweltering out. 

Of course, it was physically impossible for any of the air around us to actually _cool_ anyone, but then, wizards. I would have loved to see the whole thing on a thermal camera. 

The last stray edges of the wind fussed around her, smoothing a few invisible stray hairs back into her long blond braid, straightening her already straight suit jacket. 

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said, grinning.

She smirked. “You done here? Let me buy you a drink.”

I don’t have big sunglasses to hide my eyebrows like she does, so she saw when they made an effort to set a new high jump record. “What, did my gerbil just die?” 

“Knowing your track record with houseplants, very likely. I just want somewhere to talk.”

I frowned, trying to see through her glasses to her expression. I know not to look a wizard dead in the eyes-- that’s a lesson you damn well learn the first time-- but... “How about here? Or inside, in the AC?”

She sighed, pulling off the glasses and looking me in the nose. For about two seconds, but I didn’t blame her. The sun was like an LED headlight in the oncoming lane. “I have a favor to ask. A case I just got-- we need someone to get inside, someone without a lot of innate talent, definitely not a practitioner. Someone who can play the impressed rube but knows where to look for the strings.” 

“Way above my paygrade,” I said, as if I wasn’t itching for the chance to get my hands dirty.

“You don’t know what I’m offering to pay.” 

I shook my head. “Don’t care about the cash. I want to be able to publish when it’s wrapped up.” 

Her face was a blank mask. “It’ll be tabloid stuff only. And you know we can’t back you up.” 

“I like the tabloids. They don’t cut out the interesting parts of my stories,” I said. And depending on what this was, Trish might run it all anyway, if I sent her a copy. She was a solid friend as well as my old editor, and the _Midwestern Arcane_ would usually take my articles, even if they weren’t often about the midwest these days. 

“If this goes right, it’s going to be a very clean sweep,” Elaine said seriously. “There won’t be any handy evidence. No videos, no records, nothing to give you credibility. I won’t stop you from publishing on this one, but it will not be good for your reputation.” 

“Please. After the werewolf thing in Chicago? I don’t have a journalistic reputation. I have journalistic infamy. The last big job I had was covering a flower show for the local _Tribune_ because they wanted ‘that weird reporter who did the werewolf exposé’ to have a byline in their paper. I'm a publicity stunt.” 

And I wanted in. I wanted in bad. I wanted to know what was happening under the surface, I wanted to get the scoop even if nobody believed me-- I’d gotten used to that, it barely phased me anymore. 

“It’s going to be dangerous.” 

I smiled. 

“Look, it’ll be clean if it goes right. If it goes wrong, you may not be around to write that story. I really, really don’t want you hurt on this one.” Elaine dipped her sunglasses so that I could see her eyes-- focused somewhere around my left temple this time, but that didn’t dent her seriousness as much as you’d think. “If you dig too deep and you get caught, I might not be able to extract you.” 

“I’m a big girl, Mallory. I’ll do the job, and I won’t let the story get in the way of what you need me to do. And I’ll worry about what I need me to do.” 

She wasn’t sweating. Something about the way wizards have control over their bodies, I think she told me once? I was, but I faced her perfect calm head on, head held high. 

It was too hot, even for her, for the moment of tension to last long. She nodded once, and offered me her hand. As I shook, she said, all business: “Let’s get that drink to go. I have a hotel room a few miles away where I’ll brief you. There’s a hell of a lot of background to brief you on, and not much time.” 

It wasn’t much, just a handshake, just a drink, just a new gig. Just a storm rolling in over the desert, just lightning flashing and leaving the world charged. The universe didn’t seem to be aware; the sky was a clear, solid blue, and I was sweating in the sun. But you get a sense for this sort of thing as a journalist. I could smell the ozone. I could feel everything about to change again.


End file.
